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Technical Communication Quarterly

By Tammy Moorman and Emmy Bourne
Audience, Goals, and History
Audience
The primary audience of Technical Communication Quarterly’s (TCQ) consists of
academic researchers and professors of technical communication, although the journal also
publishes research articles on technical communication in the scientific, business, governmental
fields. TCQ’s website states, “all articles have a sound basis in theory, use accessible examples
and illustrations, and include implications for teaching, research, or practice in technical
communication.” TCQ published several articles in its third issue of 2017 specifically discussing
teaching technical communication and several articles discuss supporting technical
communication students through their degrees and onto their careers. Another issue was
dedicated to analyzing technical communication in online communities, such as Reddit and
hacktivist websites. TCQ’s research and article focus includes pedagogical approaches, the role
of digital technologies, the rhetoric of workplaces and professions, and dialogues between
academics and practitioners. The primary contributors to TCQ are professors, associate
professors, assistant professors or doctorate students at universities across the United States. In
effect, the intended audience of TCQ is equivalent to its primary contributors, professors and
academic researchers.

Goals
As its audience and primary contributors are academic researchers and professors in
technical communication, TCQ aims to drive the direction of technical communication research
and application outside academia. TCQ dedicated an entire issue to teaching strategies for
technical writing professors in an online setting. In her article, “Where Do They Go?,” Chalice
Randazzo explains, how reimagining a student’s resume as a qualitative research assignment will
allow “educators to help students build networks, synthesize and evaluate the conflicting data
they receive from their sources, and become experts on the skills necessary for their career field”
(280). This article and the others from the same issue show how TCQ is dedicated to driving
technical communication research forward by developing teaching strategies for professors in
technical communication. Other issues are more industry focused, such as rhetoric in the medical
field or the ethics in scientific writing, and analyze the role of technical communication in these
specific spaces or industries.

History
TCQ was first published in 1992 by Taylor & Francis Group and has continued to release
four issues each year since its inception. It is a peer-reviewed academic journal that deals with
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technical communication in a wide variety of fields, such as business, science, and technology.
The journal topics cover everything from ethics, educational connections, pedagogy, rhetoric,
linguistics, business/industrial communication, text design, documentation issues and audience
analysis. As long as it pertains to technical communication, it will be featured in this journal.
TCQ is affiliated with the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW) and the East
Carolina University English department, and many of its editors are affiliated with this
university. The annual subscription to TCQ also includes a membership in ATTW, further
supporting the connection between the journal and the organization.

Editorial Vision
TCQ supports the claim that the field of technical communication is universally
expansive. It provides articles that shapes the perception of technical communication and
articulates the importance of developing courses in other industries to teach technical writing and
technical communication skills. Each issue from 2017 has a specific focus for its research
articles. Issue one from 2017 focuses on online writing and technical communications in the
online space. In one article from this issue, Ehren Helmut Pflugfelder examines the subreddit,
“Explain Like I’m Five” (ELI5), and the technical communication that occurs within, stating,
“the ELI5 subreddit is a location where plain writing and technical descriptions flourish” (26).
Other articles in this issue discuss tactical technical communication, ranging from the ethics of
the hacktivist collective, Anonymous, to Jihadist tactical technical communication. Issues two
and three from 2017 both had very different focuses as its articles centered around scientific
writing and ethics and teaching strategies for technical writing and communications,
respectively. Generally, at least one of the articles in each issue will stress the importance of
teaching technical communication in other fields, while other articles make a case for the
benefits of technical communication within other industries.
The first issue of Volume 27, 2018, is introduced as a “Special Issue” by guest editors,
Elizabeth L. Angeli and Richard Johnson-Sheehan, and its articles revolve around the theme of
medical humanities and the rhetoric of health and medicine. In the introduction article,
“Introduction to the Special Issue,” Angeli and Johnson-Sheehan describe how each article
discusses the ways “the rhetoric of health and medicine, medical humanities, and technical
communication can inform one another” (1). The first article, “The Rhetoric of Health and
Medicine as a ‘Teaching Subject’” by Lillian Campbell, argues that rhetorical scholars can (and
should) contribute to the health curriculum. Campbell writes that her current work as a
rhetorician investigating clinical simulations provides a perfect example of where rhetoric is able
to make a stand in the medical humanities. She notes her research “has led to a chapter for a
nursing textbook that unpacks strategies for teaching writing practices during simulations,
coordinating a writing center site at a medical college library and organizing writing workshops
for faculty ranging from orthotics to public health, as well as traditional scholarship on genre and
gendered learning in nursing simulations” (8).
Similarly, in Daniel Kenzie and Mary McCall’s article, “Teaching Writing for the Health
Professions,” they outline an approach to teaching a writing course for health professions. It’s
noted most “clinically-bound” students in actuality take courses in the sciences, rather than in
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healthcare practice (68). Their course “may have been the only course…students took as
undergraduates that focuses on the human and professional sides of healthcare” (68). At the end
of their findings, they conclude their “healthcare writing courses present an ideal space for
[work] situated in the institutional purview and traditions of technical communication” (77). The
“Special Issue” of TCQ pushes the idea that technical communication has a rightful place within
the humanities and medical practices. It highlights the reality that in practice this it not a
common thought and describes how that affects the professions as a whole.
The latest issue of TCQ, which came out in June of 2018, describes a unique side of
technical communication. The first article by Kevin Garrison introduces the issue’s argument for
an “off the grid approach to thinking about technology and technical communication” (201). His
argument is meant to be taken literally as well as metaphorically. He encourages the readers to
prioritize “the global narratives of technology over the local narratives, the historical over the
efficient, and the nonuser over the user” (207). In many ways, he wants people to open their eyes
and become less dependent upon technology. He writes, “for technical communication, off the
grid thinking builds on rhetorical thinking by advocating for the agency (independence) of the
individual from the systems of technology and the technocracy that supports them” (209). It
changes the way we think and approach usability, and can make students more aware of
upcoming and current challenges like global ethics (212). An article that plays into this idea in
the same issue is one by Kathryn Yankura Swacha.
Swacha’s article, “Bridging the Gap between Food Pantries and the Kitchen Table,”
suggests certain classroom practices that encourage embodied literacy (261). Swacha uses a
classroom case study where “students co produced a cookbook with low-income, elderly,
disabled users, to demonstrate how students can become more responsible and effective technical
communicators” (261). She explains how technical communication is an embodied practice and
that the field of technical communication as a whole has not identified embodied literacy as a
skill to use to build comprehensive pedagogical framework (272). She explains how our
experiences are changing so rapidly due to new technologies and new spaces that produce and
consume texts, it is becoming impossible to prepare students to “create technical documents with
and about all of the specific technologies they will encounter in the contemporary workplace”
(263). Here, in the last article of the most recent issue is not only emphasizing TCQ’s will to
show a more expansive way of thinking about technical communication. It also lays out the
problems students are facing in technical communication and a possible solution to the question
that’s been asked throughout these issues: “How can we effectively teach technical
communication?” According to Swacha, we have to start inward. Solve the problems within the
field of technical communication itself before we try and teach it to other fields.
Research Methods
TCQ primarily focuses on qualitative analyses using a variety of methods such as textual
analysis, interviews, surveys, and case studies. In their article, “Developing Culturally and
Linguistically Diverse Online Technical Communication Programs,” Laura Gonzales and Isabel
Baca analyze technical communication programs “specifically by outlining and reporting on the
development and sustainability of two online programs” (273). Plugfelder’s research methods
also reflect qualitative analysis as she analyzes 233 threads in the ELI5 subreddit (33). While
their articles focus on qualitative analysis, they don’t focus on one particular method. In just four
issues starting in 2017 and going to the most current issue of 2018, the type of methods used
varies widely, including case studies, content analysis, research studies, observation, and
metatheory. In the article by J.Scott Weedon, “Representation in Engineering Practice: A Case
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Study of Framing in a Student Design Group,” he describes a case study using “ethnographic and
visual methods to investigate the framing activity of engineering students” (361). Weedon
presents an argument that hypothesis is useful for understanding “the framing of engineers,
technical communicators, and other designers” (361).
In the second issue of 2018, Molly Kessler and S. Scott Graham’s article, “Terminal
Node Problems: ANT 2.0 and Prescription Drug Labels,” uses theory analysis. They examine
prescription drug labels to demonstrate current challenges with technical communication
scholars appreciation of actor-network-theory. They conclude, “critical engagement with ANT
2.0 can provide an effective heuristic for examining large, complex networks of communication”
(133-134). Other articles such as, “Hidden in Plain Sight” by Sarah Read and Michael Michaud,
use a more traditional method. In the latest issue of TCQ, Read and Michaud conduct research on
Multi-Major Professional Courses (MMPW) attempting to gain feedback or “status” of MMPW
courses (227). To do this, they created a survey using Qualtrics and sent it out to writing
instructors who teach multi-major professional writing courses across context (232). Their
findings from the survey lead them “to suggest that there is systematic underinvestment in the
MMPW course” that have a variety of consequences such as “[having] a high level of confidence
in the value that the MMPW course has for students, [but] a lower level of confidence in the
instructor corps that teach the course” (244). Their article is another prime example of TCQ
stressing the importance of teaching about technical communication across fields.

Intertextuality
The authors of TCQ frequently cite articles previously published in TCQ and reference
them throughout their writing. This suggests the authors build on existing research published in
TCQ and continue the discourse surrounding technical communication, driving further research
forward. In her article, “Training Technical and Professional Communication Educators for
Online Internship Courses,” Jennifer Bay references previous research by stating, “the field has
already begun to address varied models of experiential learning that allow students to apply
theories to practical problems, including service-learning projects in TPC service courses” (330).
The authors also frequently cite the other major technical communications journals, including the
Journal of Business and Technical Communication, Technical Communication, and Journal of
Technical Writing and Communication. Each article contains dozens of sources and average forty
to fifty citations.
Out of the eight issues published in the past two years, four contain book reviews. The
books are related to the issues’ specific editorial focus in technical communication. In the fourth
issue of 2017, Isidore Kafui Dorpenyo writes a review on a book written by Stewart Whittemore
titled, Rhetorical Memory: A Study of Technical Communication and Information Management,
which was published in 2015. Whittemore emphasizes the need to study institutional cultures and
communication practices. He “articulates that today’s technical communicators are ‘memory
workers’” (412). Basically, they are information managers that only manage, store, and use
information. Whittemore then “exposes the problems technical communicators encounter as they
collaborate with colleagues on projects” (412). One of his last points in his book is giving
strategies that practitioners can adopt in order to solve complex problems in the workplace. The
rest of the articles in this issue all had to do with teaching a form of technical communication or
developing ways to teach technical communication effectively. By including the review of
Whittemore’s book, the issue continues to stress the importance of learning effective
communication practices, which fits into the theme of the issue.
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The most recent issue of TCQ includes a review of Carolyn Bioarsky’s book Risk
Communication and Miscommunication: Case Studies in Science Technology, Engineering,
Government, and Community Organizations. Her book provides long case studies of letters,
memos, emails, and presentations slides all dealing with high risk (predominantly)
environmental context in the United States. She looks at the 1992 Chicago flood, the 2003
Columbia shuttle breakup, the 2011 Mississippi flood, the 2015 EPA maximum Achievable
Control Technology Standards (MACT) regulation, and other events in Great Britain (283). Her
book extrapolates rhetorical principles that can help improve written communication and help
minimize risks when calamities occur. Bioarsky theorizes that writers are responsible for their
communication and that readers cannot be expected to understand something if it is not
communicated clearly. The goal of her book is “to provide principles for effective
communication that can be applied in any context but are particularly beneficial in high-risk
situations” (283). This book review once again underlines the need for proper teaching of
technical writing and communication. It also ties in the point highlighted in previous issues of
how technical writing and communication are crucial points of medical and high-risk situations.
Every article speaks to TCQ’s goal that the field of technical communication is expansive
and relevant across various contexts and industries. While not all of the articles in each issue
conversate with one another, they always deal with the same theme. There are certain issues, like
the “Special Issue” in December of 2017, where a specific theme is introduced that focuses on
technical communication in the health and medical fields. There are also instances where all of
the articles deal with technical communication in the workplace like in earlier 2017 issues.
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Works Cited
Angeli, Elizabeth L., and Richard Johnson-Sheehan. “Introduction to the Special Issue: Medical
Humanities and/or the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine,” Technical Communication
Quarterly: 27:1, 1-6, DOI: 10.1080/10572252.2018.1399746.
Bay, Jennifer. “Training Technical and Professional Communication Educators for Online
Internship Courses,” Technical Communication Quarterly: 26:3, 329-343, DOI:
10.1080/10572252.2017.1339526.
Campbell, Lillian. “The Rhetoric of Health and Medicine as a ‘Teaching Subject’: Lessons from
the Medical Humanities and Simulation Pedagogy,” Technical Communication Quarterly:
27:1, 7-20, DOI: 10.1080/10572252.2018.1401348.
Cundiff, Bailey S. “Risk Communication and Miscommunication: Case Studies in Science,
Technology, Engineering, Government, and Community Organizations. C. R. Boiarsky.”
Technical Communication Quarterly: 27:3, 283-285, DOI:
10.1080/10572252.2018.1483657.
Dorpenyo, Isidore Kafui. “Rhetorical Memory: A Study of Technical Communication and
Information Management, by Stewart Whittemore.” Technical Communication Quarterly:
26:4, 412-416, DOI: 10.1080/10572252.2017.1385996.
Garrison, Kevin. “Moving Technical Communication off the Grid”, Technical
Communication Quarterly,27:3, 201-216, DOI: 10.1080/10572252.2018.1483676.
Gonzales, Laura, and Isabel Baca. “Developing Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Online
Technical Communication Programs: Emerging Frameworks at University of Texas at El
Paso.” Technical Communication Quarterly: 26:3, 273-286, DOI:
10.1080/10572252.2017.1339488.
Kessler, Molly M., and S. Scott Graham. “Terminal Node Problems: ANT 2.0 and
Prescription Drug Labels.” Technical Communication Quarterly, 27:2, 121-136, DOI:
10.1080/10572252.2018.1425482.
McCall, Mary, and Daniel Kenzie. “Teaching Writing for the Health Professions:
Disciplinary Intersections and Pedagogical Practice,” Technical Communication
Quarterly, 27:1, 64-79, DOI: 10.1080/10572252.2017.1402573.
Pflugfelder, Ehren Helmut. “Reddit’s ‘Explain Like I’m Five’: Technical Descriptions in
the Wild.” Technical Communication Quarterly: 26:1, 25-41, DOI:
10.1080/10572252.2016.1257741.
Randazzo, Chalice. “Where Do They Go? Students’ Sources of Résumé Advice, and
Implications for Critically Reimagining the Résumé Assignment.” Technical
Communication Quarterly: 25:4, 278-297, DOI: 10.1080/10572252.2016.1221142.
Technical Communication Quarterly. Taylor & Francis Group, 2018,
tandfonline.com/toc/htcq20/current. Accessed 19 Sept 2018.
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Read, Sarah, and Michael Michaud. “Hidden in Plain Sight: Findings from a Survey on
the Multi-Major Professional Writing Course.” Technical Communication Quarterly,
27:3, 227-248, DOI: 10.1080/10572252.2018.1479590.
Swacha, Yankura Kathryn. “Bridging the Gap between Food Pantries and the Kitchen
Table”: Teaching Embodied Literacy in the Technical Communication
Classroom.Technical Communication Quarterly, 27:3,261-282, DOI:
10.1080/10572252.2018.1476589.
Weedon, J. Scott. “Representation in Engineering Practice: A Case Study of Framing in a
Student Design Group.” Technical Communication Quarterly, 26:4, 361-378, DOI:
10.1080/10572252.2017.1382258.